Stop Smoking

Hypnosis is the most effective way of giving up smoking, according to the largest ever scientific comparison of ways of breaking the habit. Willpower, it turns out, counts for very little, according to recent research.

Smokers are often bullied by the rest of the world about their smoking. When I used to smoke, people used to say to me that they didn’t think I was “that kind of person”! There is so much more pressure now about the harm it does, so many adverts, so many disapproving friends and family. However most smokers know, really, deep down, that it is hugely damaging and dangerous to smoke, and they are quite aware of the risks they are taking with their own lives.

So what’s going on?

How can we carry on doing something that we know is so harmful and justify it with statements like “I enjoy it” or “it helps me relax”? Why is it that you can normally stop doing something if you know that it is bad for you, and yet stopping smoking seems so much more difficult?

It’s all in the mind

The unconscious mind is an amazing thing. It generates habits to guide you towards good things and away from bad things. With smoking, when you first started, your natural response to those early cigarettes was to retch and feel dizzy. Your body was rejecting this toxic substance. Over time, usually due to the need to belong to a group, you overrode this natural response and so a negative habit developed. Then you associated smoking with good times, relief in bad times, and other similar experiences.

So – you can stop beating yourself up about it because…

It is NOT your fault!

Your unconscious is working perfectly to sustain a habit.

Your unconscious mind is motivating you to smoke because it has wrongly associated smoking with something good . . . and that’s why you keep doing it.
What’s a craving? Each time you want or crave a cigarette, your body is asking for nicotine, which it has become dependent on. The feeling that we call withdrawal triggers the need to smoke as the nicotine from the previous cigarette starts to leave the body. Your mind has also generalised this feeling – and by that I mean that it starts to think that nicotine can help relieve other similar feelings like fear, anxiety, stress, and so on . . .

This is one big con!

If you are stressed by something, then all the nicotine does is temporarily relieve the part of that feeling that was caused by the cigarette in the first place! The rest of the worry is still there!

Every time you have a cigarette, it is like injecting pure adrenalin, the stress hormone. Your body is constantly living with higher than normal levels of the stress hormone, caused by smoking. No wonder we feel anxious and on edge so much of the time. However, in the back of our minds (the unconscious part of our mind), you only think that the cigarette relieves the stress, and therefore the unconscious part of your mind will continue to motivate you to smoke.

All we are doing when we say “I enjoy it” or “It helps me through difficult times” is coming up with a conscious justification of our unconsciously driven behaviour – which is entirely natural.

How on earth can we get out of this cycle?

This is where hypnotherapy comes in. It is a way of accessing the unconscious part of your mind to re-train it, so that it no longer motivates you to smoke. Without that deep down motivation it becomes so easy to stop smoking. The niggling feelings you get in the couple of days afterwards will be so small that they can easily be beaten, and after that… Freedom for Good . . . and a new life of better health!!!

So – you can now choose another way. Using Cognitive Hypnotherapy and NLP we can work together to allow your unconscious mind to let go of that association completely, and quit smoking for good, far easier than you would imagine.

I was a heavy smoker from the age of 14, never wanted to give up, and never believed I could. Even on the day of my hypnotherapy session, I still wasn’t sure. That was nearly two years ago, and it was one of the best decisions I ever made! It is so much easier to give up using hypnotherapy, rather than the white knuckle ride of willpower!

There is never a good time to stop smoking, so now is as good as any. It could be the best decision you ever make! You’ll be amazed how much better you will feel, and a lot more quickly than you think.